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Victoria Police is renowned for its commitment to inclusion and diversity. Who could forget the push for segregated sessions in the recruitment drive? Stands to reason the coppers have introduced the Tesla Model X to the fleet to show “green” credentials. The point of a police car is instant dispatch when required to attend to a crisis situation, from thwarting a terrorist in the Melbourne CBD or rushing to a domestic dispute. It won’t look good when the police have to wait for the fast charger at the base to provide enough juice to make it the scene of the crime. Now that Hazelwood coal-fired power plant has been closed, good luck waiting on renewable energy to charge these cars for practical police use. Don’t be surprised when the shortcomings force a rethink.

What will they tell Victorians? “Sorry, in our quest to save the planet you’ll have to wait another 3 hours before we can attend to your domestic violence dispute. Bear with us. The car is on the charger!”

In 2016, the LAPD bought $10m worth of BMW i3s to show its commitment to climate abatement. Sadly, the cars went largely unused as they were unsuited for police work.

LAPD Deputy Chief Jorge Villegas said of the purchase, “Money well worth it…It’s all a part of saving the Earth, going green … quite frankly, to try and save money for the community and the taxpayers.”

But sources say some personnel are reluctant to use the electric cars because they can only go 80-100 miles on a charge. And the mileage logs we obtained seem to back that up.

From April 2016 when the project started through August 2017, we found most of the electric cars have only been used for a few thousand miles…And a handful are sitting in the garage with only a few hundred on them.

Like this one in service since May 27, 2016, with just 400 miles on it!

That’s an average use of 6 miles a week!

With the monthly lease payment of a little more than $418, this one costs taxpayers over $15 a mile to use!… It just doesn’t make any sense!”

CM one posted this question to someone from the NSW St Johns Ambulance with respect to discussions about EV ambulances. He said unequivocally,

“We have Webasto heaters in our cars in the colder areas. Running off the diesel they can operate 24/7 if needed. If we don’t have them some of our equipment doesn’t work like our tympanic thermometers, the blood glucose reader and then there is the problem of having cold fluids in the car. This is a problem if we are giving these IV because we can make a patient hypothermic if it’s cold. Then there’s just the general environment inside the cab. It needs to be warm in winter.”

That is the point. Emergency services need to be able to operate on call. 5 minutes to fill up with gasoline or diesel means that efficient utilisation and dispatch is guaranteed for at least 500km+.

Social Justice Warrior and Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is in hot water after 21 of his Labor MPs have been embroiled in a “Rorts for Votes” scheme investigated by the Ombudsman which breached parliamentary guidelines. It found Labor misused almost $388,000 during the 2014 election campaign. Labor spent $1,000,000 of taxpayers dime over two years trying to stop the Ombudsman investigating them. While the money has reportedly been repayed, Andrews & Co are pleading honest mistakes with regards to probably the most basic and well understood laws of election campaigning. Were someone to rob a bank, invest the proceeds to make a big return then return the original funds, would the justice system turn a blind eye? Andrews would seem to think that there should be no consequences.

Dan Andrews is the first to point the finger at everyone else for morals and ethics. How quick he is to virtue signal on social media at his amazing feats for the state of Victoria which put the rest of the country to shame. To belt neighboring states inferior unemployment rates when his government has been creating New Deal type tax spending programmes to fund new jobs.

Here is a list of just five of the shocking lapses in ethics and morals his government can lay claim to:

1) Andrews handed over $500mn in taxpayer funds to contractors for the backflip on the East-West link. He said during the election campaign he would honour those contracts but said after becoming Premier that “Be very clear about this: there will be no compensation paid.” Then still burnt the funds.

2) He told Victorians that the closure of the Hazelwood coal fired power station would hit electricity bills by 85c/week for the sake of the environment. This turned out to be an average of $278/year because of the over reliance on wholesale electricity markets. Despite all of his hair brained renewables schemes, to make up for the shortfall of closing Hazelwood 100MW of dirty diesel generators were secured to offset any shortfalls in baseload. He also spoke of how many green jobs would be created. Facts show that green job creation has been on a long term downtrend

3) Was instrumental in forcing rural fire-fighting volunteers (those who do it from the heart) against their will to come under the control of the fireman’s union who helped him get elected.

4) To indoctrinate diversity the Vic Police practiced segregation in police recruiting seminars as the blueprint to reach nirvana in terms of the type of open mindedness and multi-cultural society we should strive for. If they truly wanted to teach the virtues of diversity why don’t they just have a come one come all seminar which didn’t base it on gender, religious or sexual orientation. Victoria has more cops per capita than any other state yet home invasions, carjackings and other crime rates are soaring.

While Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has hardly helped his cause by having dinner with a member of the underworld in August 2017 in what was dubbed ‘Mobster-Lobster-gate’ this should hopefully wake up socialist Victoria to the crooked nature of the incumbents.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews blathered on his FaceBook page that wind farms create lots of jobs. In March this year I revealed the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) renewable employment figures which showed all states seeing declines. By state, South Australia has seen a 65% fall in green jobs since the peak in 2011/12. Victoria down 46%, Queensland down 49%, NSW down 32% & WA down 55%. The problem with green jobs is they are not sustainable.

ABS Program Manager of Environment and Agricultural Statistics, Lisa Wardlaw-Kelly, said that Employment in Renewable Energy Activities, Australia provides experimental estimates of the levels of employment in renewable energy by state and territory, and by types of renewable energy activities.

“Annual full time equivalent (FTE) employment in renewable energy activities was estimated to be 11,150 in 2015-16, down 16 per cent from 13,300 in 2014-15 and down from a peak of 19,220 in 2011-12,” Ms Wardlaw-Kelly said.

Wind Power in Australia made up 1,200 jobs in total in 2014/15 down from 1,700 in 2013/14 according to the ABS. Total employment in the industry is around 65,000. So for the boom that Premier Andrews is talking about the stats tell a different story. As the ABS stats clearly show, renewable jobs aren’t sustainable. While there is a spurt in construction this disappears and then consumers are faced with higher electricity prices and blackouts because they don’t provide baseload power.

Marxist Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is well known for his social justice work. However when he rejects the idea of a growing number of councils in his state shelving Australia Day you can be rest assured next to no one supports it. On the list of pointless things in Victoria it ranks below the plan for solar powered trams in Melbourne. By the way rainfall in Victoria averages 9-18 days every month.

Moreover if the largely Green-led local council movement to dump the celebration of Australia Day is of such national importance why don’t they coordinate it and announce it at the same time on the same day? After the shock value of the first mover, all following councils making the move show just how lacking in cohesion they are as a party of shared values, something becoming ever more evident at the national level. As ever these councils, some who claim their residents are not well educated enough to know better, show that it is all about them.

It doesn’t end there. Socialist Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has just referred the statue of former NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie (responsible for turning NSW from a penal colony to a free settlement) to her indigenous council for discussion on whether it should be removed for the hurt it may have caused those 200 years ago. She’s been Lord Mayor for 14 years. Surely it should have been raised in that time were it such an affront to aborigines. Why now? What about those poor Irish convicts who were forced to build many of the structures still standing in Sydney today? Where is the Irish convict panel to hear their grievances??

Is the highly successful Macquarie Bank going to be forced to change its name or remove the ground floor mini museum which has artifacts from Gov Macquarie’s time in its HQ shop window in Sydney? Will Macquarie University be forced to change its name to North Ryde University? Street names? Where does it end?

What is it with these supposed heartfelt apologies designed to show sincerity and compassion. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has apologized for any hurt that may have been caused 160 years ago to Chinese gold prospectors subject to a tax on entering Victoria meaning many had to walk on foot from South Australia. Andrews said, “It is never too late to say sorry, particularly if you mean it…On behalf of the Victorian government, on behalf of the Victorian Parliament, I express our deepest sorrow and I say to you that we are profoundly sorry.” One of Andrew’s MPs, Mr Hong Lim, said that the form of the apology had been in discussions for two years, How sincere can an apology truly be if you have to craft it over 24 months? If you’re sorry, you’re sorry – surely the words should drip from the tongue not require speech writers. Pathetic. Try apologising to your better half 2 years after your crime and see what response you get…

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is now turning the government into a property tycoon using taxpayer dollars to pour gasoline on the 6th most expensive property market in the world. His latest plan to push the greater fool theory in a country that has a 180% private debt to GDP is to encourage those who can least afford to climb on the property ladder to spend even more. While a 25% interest free loan looks exceptionally generous, rational thought for a first time buyer is to spend closer to 125% of what they would originally looked to fork out. While the government gets its 25% back simple economics tells us this is a bubble waiting to pop. To think people will stick to financing 75% of the median house price is bonkers.

If the mortgage borrower defaults, will the government accept NAB, CBA, ANZ or Westpac et al wish to do a fire sale because their balance sheet may not sustain unrealized losses in their balance sheet? Sure it is only 400 people to start with (unfair in itself because 401 onwards will face a steeper wall) but this stinks of the antics pre GFC. People then were lured into borrowing more because appraisals were massaged higher and without knowing it buyers were actually $100,000s in the hole before they started.

So let’s assume that Andrews lends $162,500 to the first 400 on average (median home price $650k). $65mn. Victoria’s tax receipts are around $20bn. Not a huge dent but you’d only need 12,300 people on a scheme to speak for 10% of the budget. There are 25,000 people wanting to climb the property ladder. If all stepped up for that, Victoria’s taxpayers would be stung for $4bn or 20% of the budget. Property-based taxes including stamp duty, land tax, the congestion levy and the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution are projected to contribute more than 42% of Victoria’s tax revenue base in 2016-17. That could drop like a stone.

Andrews would be better off addressing supply issues. Aussie property prices are a function of restricted supply. By subsidizing the first home buyer he inadvertently supports investment property owners by inflating the value of their properties even further exacerbating the problem he’s trying to fix.

Andrews is also copying the South Australian playbook on renewables which could have a reverse effect on the economy. Note South Australia was the only state which recorded negative tax revenue growth no thanks to making it a less attractive place to invest . It has the highest unemployment rate, the highest energy costs, slowest growth and is now forced to spend 13% of its revenues on a hairbrained emergency energy plan.

In any event if the private sector is unwilling to lend to these people it is a signal they’re concerned about levering already overstretched balance sheets. NAB just raised variable rates not because the RBA ticked cash rates higher, they’re facing higher funding costs via the wholesale markets where they source 40% of the cash they lend. Don’t kid yourself that already overinflated asset bubbles aren’t being recognized. Australia’s increasingly destabilized political scene and pending sovereign credit rating cut aren’t lost on investors. Take a look at US bond markets readjust in the last 4-5 months.

While as well intentioned as this plan of Premier Andrews may indeed be, shoveling the desperate into a property market using taxpayer funds will likely end up hurting them over the long term. Listen to the market. The invisible hand is about to grab many by the throat.

Sure. It is so easy to grant people certainty. Stop what you’re doing. It most certainly isn’t a game but if you did some proper due diligence you’d realize that you’re copying a model that has resolutely failed in South Australia. Jay Weatherill hasn’t stood up for his state at all. He’s sending them a bill for $550mn because he didn’t do the homework. In fact, such is his lack of preparation he is about to make the same mistake twice. To do a rush job on a battery storage tender inside two weeks and a fossil fuel plant which won’t see the light of day for at least 3-4 years shows the depths of how he deserves censure not congratulations.

Now you attack Josh Frydenberg as responsible for the state’s independent decision to ignore the advice of the experts. The national energy market is indeed a mess. While I agree with you that there is no leadership at a federal level, certain states none-the-less embarked on their own climate crusades with little thought for the realities which are becoming all to clear in South Australia. Now they are wanting the federal government to help pay for their recklessness.

Indeed you plan to follow Victoria down the same path. You will lose over a fifth of your electricity generation capacity by closing Hazelwood. No wonder South Australia is reaching for the bicycle tube repair kit because you’ll leave them no choice given Victoria can no longer be relied on when the lights go out.

Premier Andrews, indeed we do need a serious policy discussion on the future of energy in this country because the path you wish to take us will almost certainly guarantee lower growth, higher unemployment, higher costs and ultimately higher electricity prices. Talk all you want about saving the planet but even listening to the biggest alarmists will tell you that whatever Australia does will have near as makes no difference ZERO impact on the planet’s temperatures. Voters don’t need tokenism. If you want to grant them certainty, stop chasing thought bubbles on climate policy.